It's been over three months since my last musings. I've had inquiries from readers hoping the hiatus was due only to writer's block and not some dire misfortune keeping me away from the keyboard. So I guess it's time to write something to put all fears to rest. My critters and I are indeed all alive and well. The lack of news here is due only to lack of anything interesting to write. Some might suggest that never stopped me before, so maybe I've just become more aware of not having anything interesting to write. In any case, interesting or not, I might as well sum up the last few months.

It's that time of year again. Birds are singing, grass is greening, flowers are blooming, navels are showing. That means yet another hunt season is drawing to a close. This season was cursed by some of the worst, wettest weather I can remember. We got off to a fairly good start in October. November was a little worse. December-March were the pits. I only hunted 10 times in those 4 months, because the ground was usually either too frozen or too muddy. But at least we managed to end with a pretty good day on Wednesday. Despite his lack of exercise, Crossbo was his usual super self. Have I ever mentioned I love my horse?

A couple of decades ago, my erstwhile sailing buddy and I were having deep philosophical discussion. The dialog had reached a level of profundity that can only be attained through ingestion of copious quantities of ethanol. Embarking on a radical new tangent, Dave suddenly blurted "J Matt, we need more dragons." This was somewhat confusing, as our lack of dragons didn't seem to be causing any immediate problems at the moment, but I astutely deducted that, given an opportunity, Dave would have an adequate explanation for this sudden need of which I was unaware.

BBC News reports on a popular new beer in Kenya. Capitalizing on the popularity of Kenya's expatriate favorite sun now running for US President, East African Breweries is marketing Senator Keg beer, popularly known as Obama. When I first heard about it, I thought that it should be a light beer, sold with a lot of hype and a glitzy marketing campaign, with no real substance.

It seems like only yesterday that political pundits promised presidential candidates would be picked by primaries on Super Tuesday, if not before. Now that Super Tuesday, and a few more primaries, have come and gone, at least the Democratic race still lurches towards the convention. It appears that late-voting states, rather than being disenfranchised as predicted, may become the deciders. In the past, when close elections teetered on the whims of a slim margin of undecided voters in a few swing states, it bothered me that so much importance was given to those too clueless to have figured out who they wanted to vote for. Now it appears that Kentucky, with its May primary, may be one of those swing states. And with a choice of two uninspiring candidates, I may be one of those undecided voters.

Since it's too early to write about the Super Tuesday results, I might as well take some time to perform a valuable public service and pass along an urgent warning to my loyal readers. The Gullibility Virus is once again spreading rampantly around the Internet. Be very careful to avoid being its next victim! You could receive it from one of your closest friends. Don't open any email from anybody you know, or anybody you don't know!!

I don't have much respect for Bill Clinton's taste in women, either the one he married or the ones he chose to fool around with. Surely somebody with the chick-magnet potential of the Presidency could have done better than Monica Lewinsky. But he was a pretty damn good President. And he got to be President by being a political genius. And that ingenuity continues to work its magic. While I haven't quite been won over, the persuasuive Mr. Clinton is coming damn close to persuading me that the witch he married would be a less undesirable presidential candidate than Barack Obama. Of course, he's not doing that all by himself. He's getting substantial assistance, mainly from Mr. Obama and his supporters.

With all the recent dismal weather curtailing outdoor fun, it might seem that I should have more time for mindless musings, which have been scarce recently. Available time is not the issue. The doldrums are also affecting my creative enthusiasm. So, in a feeble attempt to fill space here, I'm stooping to stealing a recent news item, with no additional comment of my own. My excuse is that it was reported in a periodical probably not on the regular reading list of those who stumble here. While the gist of the article may be no surprise to some of us, it was nice to see it confirmed.

I realize my musings have been pretty sparse lately, and horse news has been even sparser. That's partly because December sucked. Due to crappy weather and scheduling problems, Crossbo and I only hunted twice in December, and I managed to get in one other non-hunting ride. Only three rides in a month makes us both grumpy. But today, we survived our first hunt of the New Year, with both of us recovering remarkably well from the time off. It was a great day, but there was nothing really spectacular to write about, so this is just a quick note to reassure all that Crossbo and I are alive and well and hoping January provides opportunity to make up for December.

During some of the Christmas downtime, when weather made indoors more enticing than outdoors, I finally got around to installing Leopard on my PowerBook. I've been running it at work for a couple of months, so I knew what to expect, but I installed it anyway. I'm not sure why. I guess because since I had bought it, I might as well use it. Or maybe I've just drunk too much of the Apple Kool-Aid, and can't resist the urge to keep up with their latest glitzy offering (although I have resisted the iPhone so far).